We enter our studies, and enjoy a society which we alone can
bring together. We raise no jealousy by conversing with one in
preference to another; we give no offence to the most illustrious
by questioning him as long as we will, and leaving him as
abruptly. Diversity of opinion raises no tumult in our presence:
each interlocutor stands before us, speaks or is silent, and we
adjourn or decide the business at our leisure.
- Walter Savage Landor

No possession can surpass, or even equal, a good library to the
lover of books. Here are treasured up for his daily use and
delectation, riches which increase by being consumed, and
pleasures which never cloy.
- John Alfred Langford

He has his Rome, his Florence, his whole glowing Italy, within
the four walls of his library. He has in his books the ruins of
an antique world, and the glories of a modern one.
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I love vast libraries; yet there is a doubt,
If one be better with them or without,--
Unless he use them wisely, and, indeed,
Knows the high art of what and how to read.
- John Godfrey Saxe, The Library

'Tis well to borrow from the good and the great;
'Tis wise to learn: 'tis God-like to create!
- John Godfrey Saxe, The Library

A large library is apt to distract rather than to instruct the
learner; it is much better to be confined to a few authors than
to wander at random over many.
- Seneca (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)

Some book there is that she desires to see.
Which is it, girl, of these? Open them, boy.
But thou art deeper read and better skilled:
Come and take choice of all my library,
And so beguile thy sorrow, till the heavens
Reveal the damned contriver of this deed.
- William Shakespeare, Titus Andronicus
(Titus at IV, i)

A circulating library in a town is as an evergreen tree of
diabolical knowledge.
- Richard Brinsley Sheridan, The Rivals
(act I, sc. 2)

What laborious days, what watchings by the midnight lamp, what
rackings of the brain, what hopes and fears, what long lives of
laborious study, are here sublimized into print, and condensed
into the narrow compass of these surrounding shelves!
- Horace (Horatio) Smith (a/k/a Paul Chatfield)